International hygiene study: scores for personal and household hygiene in 12 countries presented

In the wake of Global Handwashing Day, the Hygiene Council has released more findings from its international HABIT Study (Hygiene: Attitudes, Behavior, Insight and Traits). Below are charts comparing handwashing and household hygiene scores for 12 countries.

Percentage of respondents who wash hands 5+ times daily

Percentage with High Household Hygiene Score

The research study sought to characterize the key determinants of personal and household hygiene behaviours that affect health cross-culturally; to pinpoint the key factors in different personalities and settings that determine hygiene behaviour, and highlight those that can be modified to improve health. The study was conducted from January to March 2011 by the Hygiene Council, an initiative sponsored by household, health and personal care producer Reckitt Benckiser.

Key results

Some 54 per cent of people surveyed globally reported good personal hygiene. Some of the findings that influenced hygiene scores were:

Can we see the questionaire? Whether the questionaire was country / region specific or same for all countries? What was basis for selecting the respondents? What was the socio-economic condition of the respondents?

Dear Yanti, I have just moved your post about your paper ("Towards sustained sanitation services: a review of existing frameworks and an alternative framework combining ecological and sanitation life stage approaches.") into this thread as it fits better here. (if anyone wants to see the link just scrol up to her post on 13 Oct). As it's not a […]

Dear Sanjay, I can't really picture how you would set this directory up and who could add to it? It reminds me a little bit of two existing pages on Wikipedia which might inspire you: - Water pollution in India: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pollution_in_India - Indian states and union territories ranked by prevalence of open defecation en.wikipedia.org/w […]

You are so right about pointing out the earth-shattering news, Arno! Let's all forget about quoting that 2.4 billion figure for people without access to improved sanitation (from the MDG era). I think the new figure to keep "pushing" into people's attention is 4.5 billion people without access to safely managed sanitation. I am doing my b […]

Welcome to Aquaya as a new SuSanA partner! I first came across Aquaya via a project they had funded by the Gates Foundation which I had added to the SuSanA project database for them: It was called "Cash on delivery for water quality testing", see here: www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/projects/database/details/150 It ended in 2015 - do you have any […]